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Boiled Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes boiled, then cooked in butter and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,491 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Boiled Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the sweet potatoes well.

  2. Trim off any dried specks.

  3. Scrape off the skin.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the sweet potatoes in plenty of water until nearly done.

  2. Add the butter and molasses to the kettle.

  3. Let the sweet potatoes fry brown in the mixture.

  4. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sweet potato + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + molassestop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the starchy base that becomes tender inside and holds its shape when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the potatoes fry and brown in the pan.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark colour, and its sugars caramelize as the potatoes brown.

The step that matters

Let the sweet potatoes fry brown in the mixture. Molasses contains sugars that caramelize and can scorch quickly over direct heat. Watch the colour closely so the potatoes brown evenly without burning.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, molasses):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatothe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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